Camping during the summer is my favourite. Maybe even more than other out of country trips. There is something so peaceful about getting out in nature, and forgetting about the rat race of social media and work and simply being able to stop and just sit by the fire.

I have always loved camping, whether it’s car camping (with or without electricity) or back country camping, I love it all! I have actually always wanted to do one of those super wilderness challenges, where you get dropped off in the middle of nowhere and have to figure out how to build shelter and gather firewood and hunt your food, and deal with all the chaos that brings!

Camping with kids can have many ups and downs!

But it can also have some of the best memory making moments!

Some people start camping with their kids when they are babies. We didn’t camp much with the kids when they were super young. Mostly, because it just requires a lot more work, and we are so lucky to have had too many fun things to do in the yard when they were unsteady on their “new” legs and falling on their faces.

We really regularly started camping with the kids during the summer of 2019, and then we camped a lot through 2020. The kids are very excited to camp in 2021 – they are even heading out on their first back country trip this summer.

I find there are two “camps” of people. Those that love it, and those that are interested but intimidated, well then there’s those that think sitting on a patio is outdoorsy enough!

For those that are interested yet intimidated, I promise to make your interest peak, and set your intimidations aside with some of my “camping series” posts to come.

To make the most of camping, you gotta plan ahead!

The start of planning ahead is dealing with what gear you already have, or might need to get. Then you have to organize it so that you can pack it into the car, then have it organized for your site or for your pack.

After the purge, I was most excited to finally have a spot in the garage where we could keep all of our camping gear and make it accessible enough that we could book last minute sites anytime!

Like I have said before when decluttering and setting up anything that you want to organize, start by pulling all of your stuff together, then sorting out what to keep or get rid of. Finally, you can set it all up knowing what you have and love! You’ll note all the chaos of our belongings in front of the shelf in the before picture…oy! It’s tricky actually to get a feel of just how deep that pile is before the shelf….but let’s say it took a LONG time to go through!

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Now, we can decide to book a trip on a Wednesday or Thursday, and be setting up our tent on that Friday!! It has always been my dream to have easy access to our camping gear. It’s finally happened!!

Now to hang my hammock in the back yard and chill!

Thanks for coming home!